The Marshall London's 'David' update

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I've been a huge fan of the Marshall London smartphone in the last couple of years. THE richest front facing speakers on any phone in the world still, by quite a margin. Stereo microphones that can record the loudest band. Grippy and durable outer skin that has never needed a case. Twin headphone jacks. Replaceable battery, the list goes on.

On the flip side, the chipset inside and screen specs aren't stellar and have been showing their age in recent times. These can't be helped, but a constant worry in terms of day to day use was lack of security, in that the Google Security patch level was back at June 2016 - and we call know how many vulnerabilities Android has had revealed since then.

Marshall seemed to have stopped updating this phone, but it seems as though they've merely been reorganising their support system and have now emerged from the darkness. In fact, there's a rather encouraging changelog. 
From the official post on the update:
2016 is now behind us and we have done a lot of work in the background to make sure we can bring out more firmware updates faster to your London. Thank you again for your patience & choosing the most rock&roll phone on the planet.
 We have added features requested by users as well as fixed most of the top-5 annoying bugs reported by owners.
  • 5MB email attachment limit has been increased to 20MB
  • Latest Google Services supported
  • You can now restart your phone from the power menu
  • Updated Equalizer service
  • Bug-fix: Location icon would display in notification bar even if disabled
  • Bug-fix: Incorrect suffix in Clock widget
  • Bug-fix: Network traffic icon alignment when active
  • Bug-fix: Lag in volume adjustment
  • Google Security Updates up to January 2017
  • ‘Quadrooter’ security exploit protection
  • Outdated ‘Android tips’ widget removed

  

Encouragingly, Marshall seems to be back on the ball in terms of keeping the London responsive too:
More optimization and user experience updates will be included in the next firmware update.
Great to see and I still go back to my beloved London in between review device testing and other 'diversions'!
PS. If you hadn't heard of the London before, it's here, though at a crazy placeholder price of £399.
PPS. See also my original full review of the London here on Android Beat.

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